This helped me feel better about the delay of the Half Blood Prince movie. I lifted it, (and pruned parts that related to the non HP movie) right from the Leaky Cauldron's news. URL below.
And Sylent_Rose? Re: your August 7 post: I'm betting the 2nd half of Deathly Hallow will be released in July, since there's now a "tradition" of blockbuster movies releasing November and July. Silly. A great movie will be a blockbuster no matter when it's released IMHO (in my humble opinion).
Now I can concentrate on going completely insane for the Twilight movie release in November!
http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/2008/9/19/tlc-talks-to-david-heyman-on-hbp-move-deathly-hallows-scripts-and-more
Harry Potter film producer David Heyman has been conducting interviews in conjunction with the release of his newest film “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas” which stars actor David Thewlis (Remus Lupin). Along with many other Harry Potter fan sites, we here at the Leaky Cauldron were able to speak to Mr. Heyman, who answered this editor’s questions regarding the recent move of “Half-Blood Prince” to next year, as well as give us an update on the elimination of beloved characters from movie six, their return for movie seven. Importantly, Mr. Heyman discusses why two “Deathly Hallows” films were good for keeping in the subplot on The Deathly Hallows, and gives us an update on the progress on the scripts for “Deathly Hallows” part one and two.
Hi David, it’s Sue from Leaky.
After the news broke on the decision to move the film until next year, fans were very upset and (WB president) Alan Horn weighed in with his thoughts on this matter. Have you any words that you as the producer can say to those fans who are still very upset and concerned their feelings and dedication to the series are not being taken seriously?
DAVID HEYMAN: The fact is that my passion and that of everybody who works on the film is undiminished. It is called ‘the film business’ and the reason why Warner Bros moved the date was for business reasons. Because of the writer’s strike and other factors in Hollywood there was not the pipeline of material for next year that they needed. They had a very big year with The Dark Knight and they needed a big film for 2009 and Harry Potter filled that slot. I appreciate the disappointment, I really do. As a film maker it is always nice to finish a film and move on to the next. But I think that the film will not be hurt by this experience at all. The studio has always been, and remains, committed to the film in every way. If the film had come out in November this year, there would have been a two year wait for the first part of Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows. What now will happen is that there will be a two year gap between Order Of The Phoenix and The Half Blood Prince and there will only be, in ball park terms, a 16 month gap between Half Blood Prince and the first part of The Deathly Hallows. The Deathly Hallows is coming out in exactly the same schedule as was originally planned and we are starting principal photography in February as planned. So nothing has changed with the other films. As opposed to there being a two year gap between Five and Six, there will now be a two year gap between Six and Seven.
TLC. After the move of HBP to next year, we were uncertain if you were still going to do those test screenings, and I think its safe to say we were all thrilled with those reports from the first screenings-I know I can’t wait to see the movie! However, given there has to be cuts in beloved characters such as the House Elves, can you tell us if these things will impact the development of movie seven and eight (ie events at Gringotts/Grimmauld place and we love Dobby!).
DAVID HEYMAN: Inevitably there will be certain things that we will probably have to introduce and emphasise in the Seventh film. Before we read the Seventh book there had been things in the earlier films that we had not realized how important they were. There was an example in the Fifth film when we were considering cutting Kreature but Jo [Rowling] said to me…”I wouldn’t do that if I were you’…She didn’t tell us why, but she said we would be advised to keep him. And of course in the Seventh book Kreature is an important character. It has been a while, for example, since we have seen Dobby and I suspect we are going to have to make more of Dobby in Seven than we might have done. I think we have done a pretty good job of what we need in terms of the plot. TLC.How are we doing on the scripts for both the DH films btw?
DAVID HEYMAN: They will be very faithful to the book. On of the pleasures of having the time to make two films means we will be able to go into more detail than we might otherwise have been able to do. If we had only done one film we were concerned that we might have to remove The Deathly Hallows. We never went that far but that would have been something that might have had to come out, which would have been terrible! The script is coming along well; I have read the first half of the adaptation. I have not read the second half, that should be coming in the next few weeks.
Update 1: In an interview with Snitchseeker regarding the premiere of the HBP film, Mr. Heyman said that “We suspect that there will be a premiere in New York and one in London. ” He also confirmed the reason behind cutting the battle at the end of the HBP was indeed due to the big battle that happens at the end of Deathly Hallows.
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